“In a situation such as this he’d not be playing foolish tricks.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” said Andrew. “They’re always up to tricks, some of them just this side of vicious. I shall keep an eye on him as well. If Conrad does not cut his throat, should need be, I’ll brain him with my staff.”
9
He had been right, Duncan told himself, back there at the church. They couldn’t stay here any longer. They had wasted time and he had the feeling, somehow, that time might be important.
He sat, propped against the cave wall, the heavy blanket pulled up to cover half his body. Tiny lay across the cave’s mouth. Outside, just beyond the cave, Daniel stamped and Beauty could be heard moving about. In one corner Conrad snored heroically, gulping explosively between the snores. Andrew, the hermit, wrapped in a blanket on his pallet, mumbled in his sleep. Ghost had disappeared.
He and Conrad could go back, of course, Duncan thought. Back to Standish House. And no one would blame them. The plan from the very beginning had been that a small party, traveling quietly and swiftly, would be able to slip unobserved through the Desolated Land. Now that appeared to be impossible. The shape of circumstances had operated in such a manner as to make it impossible. More than likely it had been impossible from the start. Their collision with the hairless ones had given notice that they were here. The expedition by the Reaver, who had set out to track them down, probably had alerted the Harriers. Duncan wondered what might have happened to the Reaver and his men. If they had come to a bad end, it would be no wonder, for they were an ill-favored and fumbling lot.
He didn’t like it, he told himself. He liked none of the situation. The whole adventure had gone awry. Thinking of it, he realized that one of the things he liked least about it were the volunteers they had picked up. Ghost was bad enough, but there wasn’t much that could be done about a ghost. The hermit was the worst. He was an old fuddy-duddy with busybody tendencies and a coward to boot. He said he wanted to be a soldier of the Lord and there was no way one could argue against that, just so he kept out of other people’s way. The thing about it was, of course, that so far he’d kept out of no one’s way. If he kept on with them he’d be underfoot at every turn. But what could be done about it? Tell him he couldn’t go? Tell him there was no place for him? Tell him this after they had accepted his hospitality?
Maybe, Duncan told himself, he was fretting when there was no need to fret. Ten to one, the hermit would beg off, would decide at the last moment that there were imperative reasons why he should not venture from his cell.
And Snoopy, the goblin, what about him? Not to be trusted, more than likely, although in some ways he had made an impressive case for himself. They’d have to watch him closely. That could be left to Conrad. Snoopy probably was more than a little scared of Conrad, and he had a right to be. Conrad had not been joking when he’d said he’d cut his throat. Conrad never joked.
So what to do? Go on or turn back? A case could be made for abandoning the journey. There had been no charge placed upon them to face up to great danger, to ram their heads into a noose, to keep on no matter what the hazard.
But the stakes were high. It was important that the aged savant at Oxenford should see the manuscript, and if they turned back now there was a chance he would never see it. The man was old; His Grace had said that his sands were running out.
And now, thinking of it, he remembered something else that His Grace had said that evening in the library of Standish House. “The lights are going out,” he’d said. “They are going out all over Europe. I have a feeling that we are plunging back again into the ancient darkness.” His Grace, when all was said and done, was something of a sanctimonious blabber-mouth, but even granting that, he was not a fool. If, in all solemnity, he had voiced a feeling that the lights were going out, then there was a good chance that they were going out and the olden darkness would come creeping in again.
The churchman had not said that proving the manuscript to be genuine would play a part in holding back the darkness, and yet, as Duncan remembered it, the implication had been there. For if it could be proved, beyond all doubt, that a man named Jesus had actually walked the Earth two millennia ago, if it could be shown that He had said the words He was reported to have said, died in the manner and in the spirit the Gospels reported, then the Church would gain in strength. And a strengthened Church would be a powerful force to hold back that darkness of which His Grace had spoken. For almost two thousand years it had been the one great force speaking out for decency and compassion, standing firm in the midst of chaos, providing men a slender reed of hope to which they might cling in the face of apparent hopelessness.
And what, he asked himself, if once the man at Oxenford had seen the manuscript he should pronounce it valueless, a fraud, a cruel hoax against mankind? Duncan shut his eyes, squeezing them shut, shaking his head. That was something he must never think of. Somehow the faith must be preserved. The whole matter of the manuscript was a gamble, he told himself in all honesty, that must be taken.
He lay, with his head thrown back against the wall of earth, and the agony welled in him. No devout member of the Church, he still was of the Church. It was a heritage that he could not ignore. Almost forty generations of his forebears had been Christians of one sort or another, some of them devout, others considerably less than devout, but Christians all the same. A folk who stood against the roaring and the jeering of the pagan world. And here, finally, was a chance to strike a blow for Christ, a chance such as no other Standish had ever had. Even as he thought this, he knew there was no way he could step aside from the charge that had been placed upon him. There could be no question but that he must go on. The faith, poor as it might be, was a part of him; it was blood and bone of him, and there was no denying it.
10
Snoopy had not been waiting at the church. They had hunted for him, yelled for him, waited for him, but he had not appeared. Finally they had gone on without him, Tiny taking up the point, ranging well ahead and to all sides. The hermit, pacing beside Beauty, followed Conrad, while Duncan and Daniel took up the rear.
Andrew still grumbled about the goblin. “You should be glad that he failed to show up,” he told Duncan. “I tell you there is no truth in him. You can’t trust any of them. They are fickle folk.”
“If we had him with us,” Duncan said, “we could keep an eye on him.”
“On him, of course. But he’s a slippery imp. He could be off and away without your noticing. And what are you going to do about the others?”
“The others?”
“Yes. Other goblins. Assorted gnomes, imps, banshees, trolls, ogres and others of their kind.”
“You talk as if there were many of them here.”
“They are as thick as hair on a dog and up to no good, not a one of them. They hate all of us.”
“But Snoopy said they hated the Harriers even worse.”
“If I were you,” said the hermit, “I wouldn’t bet my life on it, and that is what we are doing, betting our lives on what a goblin told us.”
“Yet when Snoopy told us the quickest and the easiest way, you did not contradict or correct him.”
“The goblin was right,” said Andrew. “This is the easiest way. If it is also the safest, we shall see.”
They followed a small valley, heavily wooded. The brook, which had its origin in the spring near Andrew’s cave, brawled and chattered along a rocky streambed.
As the valley broadened out, they came upon a few small homesteads, some burned to the ground, others with a few blackened timbers or a chimney standing. Crops that had ripened lay in swaths upon the ground, the heavy heads of grain beaten down by rain and wind. Fruit trees had been chopped down.
Ghost had not put in an appearance, although on several occasions Duncan thought he glimpsed him flitting through the trees on the hillside above the valley.
“Have you seen anything of Ghost?” he asked Andrew. “Is he with us?”
“How should I know,” grumbled the hermit. “Who is there to know what a ghost would do?”
He clumped along, fuming, striking his staff angrily against the ground.
“If you don’t want to be here, why don’t you go back?” Duncan asked.
“I may not like it,” said Andrew, “but this is the first chance I’ve had to be a soldier of the Lord. If I don’t grasp it now, I may never have the chance again.”
“As you wish,” said Duncan.
At noon they halted for a brief rest and something to eat.
“Why don’t you ride the horse?” Andrew asked Duncan. “If I had a horse I would save my feet.”
“I’ll ride him when the time comes to do so.”
“And when will that be?”
“When the two of us can work together as a fighting unit. He’s not a saddle horse; he’s a war-horse, trained to fight. He’ll fight with me or without me.”
Andrew grumbled. He’d been grumbling ever since they had started out.
Conrad said, “I like it not. Too quiet.”
“You should be glad of that,” said Andrew.
“Tiny would have let us know if anyone were about,” said Duncan.
Conrad placed the head of his club against the ground, gouging the soil with it.
“They know we’re here,” he said. “They are waiting someplace for us.”
When they took up the march again, Duncan found that he was inclined to be less watchful than he had been when they started in the morning. Despite the occasional burned homestead and the general absence of life, the valley, which grew wider and less wild as they progressed, had a sense of peace and beauty. He upbraided himself at those times when he realized he had become less alert, but a few minutes later he would fall into inattentiveness. After all, he told himself, Tiny was scouting out ahead. If there was anything around, he would let them know.
When he did snap back to attention, he found himself glancing at the sky rather than at the surrounding hills, and it took him a little time to realize that he was watching for Diane and her griffin. Where could she have gone, he wondered, and perhaps more important, why had she gone? And who could she be? Given the time, he would have tried to find out about her, but there had been no time. The puzzling thing about it all was her interest in Wulfert, a wizard centuries dead, with gray-blue lichens growing on his tomb. More than likely it had been Wulfert’s bauble and not Wulfert himself that she had been seeking, although he had no proof of that. He felt the outline of the bauble, which he had thrust into his belt pouch. It made sense, he told himself, that it was the bauble she had been seeking. Wulfert’s bones could be of no use to anyone. Perhaps if he really got down to business and examined the bauble, he might be able to pick up some clue to its purpose. Although, he thought, he would be a poor one to do that. An infernal machine, Andrew had called it. Although that could be discounted, for it was the kind of reaction to be expected of the hermit. Should it be a machine, as the hermit had said, infernal or otherwise, he, Duncan Standish, knew nothing of machines. For that matter, he thought, comforting himself, neither did many other people.
Head down, thinking, he ran into Beauty’s rear end. Startled, he backed away and the little burro, cocking her head to glance backward at him, unloosed a playful kick that caught him in the knee. It was a light kick, with little power behind it.
Everyone had stopped, he saw, and was staring down the valley. Coming toward them, hobbling, limping and complaining loudly, was an old woman. Behind her, shagging her along, came Tiny.
Conrad said proudly, “Tiny’s got him something.”
No one else said anything. Duncan walked forward to join Conrad.
The old woman came up to them and flopped down on the ground in a sitting position, pulling her rags about her. She was a hag. Her nose was sharp and pointed, with hairs like spiderlegs growing out of it. More hairs sprouted on her chin. She had no more than half a dozen teeth, and her gray hair hung about her eyes.
“Call off your hound,” she shrilled at them. “He drove me like a cow. Gentlemanly about it, I must say. He took no chunks of flesh out of this poor body, as I suppose he could have. But he routed me out of that foul nest I call my home and herded me up the valley. And I don’t like it. I don’t like being herded. If I had a tithe of the power I once had, I would have frazzled him. But now I have no power. They took all the things I had got together—the owl’s blood, the bat’s brains, the eyes of newts, the skin of toad, ash from a fire in which a witch had burned, the tooth of a dog that had bitten a priest …”
“Hold up, grandmother,” said Duncan. “Who took this great hoard from you?”
“Why, the Harriers,” she said. “Not only did they take them, but they laughed at me gruesomely. Yes, that is how they laughed at me—gruesomely. Then they kicked my big butt out of there and set the torch to my humble hut.”
“You are lucky,” Andrew told her, “that they didn’t hang you or toss you in the blaze.”
She spat with disgust upon the ground. “The brutes!” she said. “The bullies! And I almost one of them. Almost of their own. They shamed me, that’s what they did. They said, short of saying it, that I was not worth a length of rope or the disturbance of the fire.”
“You should be glad they shamed you,” Andrew said. “Shame is a preferable alternative to death.”
“I had worked so hard,” she lamented, “and for so many years. I tried hard to build a professional reputation as a witch upon whom my clients could depend. I studied the cabala and I practiced—I practiced endlessly to perfect my art. I worked hard and sought endlessly for the materials needed in my craft. I hate to think of the midnight hours I spent in graveyards, seeking out the various kinds of grave mold.…”
“You tried hard to be a witch,” said Conrad.
“Laddy, that I did. I was an honest witch. An honest witch and there are not too many honest witches. Evil, perhaps. A witch must have some evil in her. Otherwise she would not be a witch. Evil, but honest.”
She looked at Duncan.
“And now, sir, should you wish to run that great sword through me …”
“I would not think of it,” said Duncan. “Through another witch, perhaps, but not an honest witch.”
“What do you intend to do with me? Since your dog brought me here, what will you do with me?”
“Feed you, for one thing,” said Duncan. “That is, if you are in need of food. You look as if you might be. Why should not one be courteous to an honest witch who has fallen on hard times?”
“You’ll regret the courtesy,” Andrew said to Duncan. “Fool around with witches and some of the witchery is bound to rub off on you.”
“But this one is scarcely a witch any longer,” protested Duncan. “You heard her say so. She has lost all her paraphernalia. She has not a thing to work with.”
Tiny had sat down and was regarding her quizzically. He acted as if he thought she belonged to him.
“Get that horrid beast away from me,” said the witch. “Although he hides it in a seeming humor, he has a wicked eye.”
“Tiny is no wicked dog,” said Conrad. “He has no badness in him. Otherwise you would be without an arm or leg.”
The woman put her hands on the ground and tried to lift herself.
“Here,” said Conrad, putting out a hand. She grasped it and he hauled her to her feet. She shook herself to make the rags fall back in place.
“In truth,” she said, “you two are gentlemen. The one does not run a blade through me and the other helps me to my feet. Old Meg thanks you.”
She switched her gaze to Andrew.
“This one I do not know about,” she said. “He is a sour character at the best.”
“Pay no attention to him,” Duncan said. “He is a sour old hermit and the day’s not gone well for him.”
“Witches I have no love for,” said Andrew. “I will tell you plain. Nor goblins nor gnomes nor wizards nor any of their ilk. There are too many suc
h in this world we live in. We’d be better off without them.”
“You said something about food,” said Meg, the witch.
“We have another hour or two of travel before the day is done,” said Duncan. “If you could wait that long.”
“I have in my pocket,” said Andrew, “a small bit of cheese, carrying it in case I should feel faint. If she wants it, she is welcome to it.”
“But Andrew, I thought …”
“For a woman,” said Andrew, “not a witch. Anyone who hungers …”
He held out the piece of cheese and she accepted it demurely, if a creature such as she could be demure.
“Bless you,” she said.
“I do not accept your blessing,” Andrew told her stiffly.
11
Well before the sun had set, they camped, gathering wood, building a fire, bringing water.
“There’s no reason to go without a fire,” said Duncan. “If there’s anyone around, they’ll know that we are here.”
Meg had ridden Daniel, who had been inclined to prance when she’d first been boosted to the saddle, but later quieted down, going at a deliberate pace to accommodate the rack of bones that rode upon his back.
Conrad, squatting before the fire, raked hot coals off to one side and cooked oaten cakes and rashers of bacon.
Their camp was situated at the edge of a small grove, with the stream in front of them and a sandy stretch of ground running from the water to the grove.
They ate as darkness was creeping over the land. A short time later Ghost came floating in.
“So there you are,” said Andrew. “We had been wondering what had happened to you.”
“Much afraid,” said Ghost, “still I travel very widely. In the open daylight, which is unpleasant for me, I spied out the land.”
“How far have you gone?” asked Duncan.
“To where the fen begins. I do not go beyond. Very spooky place.”